


Until You Feel

by yumetourou



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: M/M, Winkdeep, flower symbolism, hanahaki disease!au, maybe a bit graphic near the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 15:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15027431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yumetourou/pseuds/yumetourou
Summary: The first stab of love is like a sunset, a blaze of colours.Orange, pearly pinks, vibrant purples, pale yellows -- all the colours of flowers.





	Until You Feel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peachjelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachjelly/gifts).



> i'm not 100% sure if you requested this, but even if you didn't it can still be a tribute to you heh

The silver van pulled up in front of a house with faded blue siding. Off in the distance, a small town could be made out. The last time Jinyoung had visited the beach house had been when he was five. Now he was 15. He stepped out of the car and the ocean breeze ruffled his hair, the salt stinging his eyes. He was not particularly excited for the two months of his precious summer vacation that his family would be spending here, but his parents had just blamed it on his "Seoul boy heart." He walked over to the edge of the small cliff and peered over. The beach below was idyllic and unchanged since his last visit, the same dark sand and sharp rocks. The only new addition was the wooden bench about three metres from the edge, although it appeared to be falling apart. Small waves crashed on the shore. Jinyoung watched them, the repetitive yet ever-changing motion putting him in a trance. His mother called him away from the edge to help unpack the car. The white paint chipped off into his hand as he opened the rickety door. He was greeted by the smell of wet wood, meaning it had rained here recently. Jinyoung rolled his suitcase into the house and turned down the hallway to his left. At the end sat his room, reminiscent of his five-year-old self. Old toys and books he thought he had lost littered the floor. He opened the window to air out the musty scent of the room, almost knocking over a glass vase in the process. He stopped the vase from tipping over, but the wobbling had caused a few of the flower's dead petals to float to the ground. He squinted at the shape of the petals, trying to identify the flower they had come from. Ever since he was young, his mother had taught him about botany. He loved that every flower had a different meaning, and decided to study it on his own time. It was the one peaceful thing in his increasingly hectic life. After a careful examination, he identified the flower as a chrysanthemum.

"A life of ease," he whispered the flower's meaning to himself. He guessed that at five his life was much more at ease than it was now. He took the dead stems out of the vase and threw them into the wind, hoping they would blow far away and decompose somewhere else. He walked into the kitchen and rinsed out the vase, who knows what could have accumulated in there in 10 years.  After towelling off the glass, he wandered back into his room. He had left the window wide open, the white curtains flapping in the wind. They looked like oddly shaped ghosts. Just then, a strong gust of wind hit Jinyoung in the face. It brought with it five pink petals that settled gently on the dresser. Jinyoung looked out the window to see if he could find where they came from, but no flowers could be seen. He brushed it off as the breeze picking them up from town. He gathered them into his hand and let the wind take them away again.

-

Jinyoung was back in the car. His knees already were sore from sitting the entirety of the five-hour drive to the coast, but his parents were taking him into town to get groceries. Jinyoung stared out the window at the horizon, the grass and sky and sunlight becoming a bright blur of colours. He closed his eyes. He preferred when it was overcast, the colours were muted and easier on the eyes. Eventually, he fell into a dreamless sleep, the seatbelt digging into his neck. When the car came to a stop, Jinyoung woke up. He yawned and stretched as he stepped out of the car. He rubbed at the irritated red mark on his neck from the seatbelt. He followed his parents into the small grocery store, thankful for the air conditioner even if it was a tad too cold. He wandered around the aisles with no particular goal, desperately trying to avoid employees asking if he needed help. This was not achieved. Jinyoung sighed as he saw someone in the bright red uniform approaching him.

"Hey, kid! Are you gonna buy something or just wander around until I kick you out?" Jinyoung stared but gave no answer. He went back to reading the ingredients of off-brand Fruit Loops. The young employee came closer. "I'm talking to you. Can you at least answer me?"

"Maybe I will just wander around. Also, aren't you too young to be calling me 'kid'?" Jinyoung made eye contact with the boy. Up close, his eyes were quite round. If he wasn't about to shout at him, Jinyoung would've liked to get to know this boy with the nice eyes better. 

"My age isn't what matters! What matters is that I have the authority to kick you out!" His face was getting redder the more he spoke. 

"Oh yeah? Do it then." If these were the type of people that Jinyoung had to deal with, then this summer was going to be a long one. The boy opened his mouth to fire back but quickly shut it. Jinyoung glanced at the nametag pinned to his shirt. "Jihoon, huh?" Jinyoung stuck out his hand. "I'm Jinyoung." Jihoon took Jinyoung's hand and shook it. His hands were soft and Jinyoung missed it when he let go. 

"So, Jinyoung, are you from Seoul? You talk like you are. Plus I've never seen you around here before."

"I am. Where are you from?"

"I moved here when I was seven. So, what's a Seoul boy doing in a sad little town like this?"

"My parents and I are visiting our beach house. You know the old blue one about five kilometres outside of town? On the cliff?" Jihoon nodded. "That's where I'm staying." Jihoon's already large eyes grew wider.

"That's where you're staying? We used to tell ghost stories about that house when we were young. One time I got dared to sneak in but I never did." He glanced at the red mark on Jinyoung's neck. "What, been here for a day and already getting girls?" Jinyoung shot him a look.

"It's from a seatbelt. I fell asleep in the car." Jihoon shivered.

"Damn, its cold in here. If only the manager could turn down the AC a little bit." Jinyoung shrugged off his hoodie and tossed it to Jihoon before running out after his parents.

"I'll be back for that tomorrow!"

On second thought, maybe Jihoon was exactly the type of person that Jinyoung wanted to deal with. 

-

Jinyoung pushed open the glass doors to the grocery store. It was three weeks since he had met Jihoon, and he could confidently say that he had at least made a friend this summer. He never did get his sweater back, but whenever he noticed Jihoon wearing it when he visited he felt proud. Today, Jihoon was working at the register. He invited Jinyoung behind the counter and Jinyoung sat on the empty stool beside him. Like usual, the floor behind the counter was littered with comic books and candy wrappers. Jinyoung could never tell if they were from Jihoon or the other employees. 

"You're leaving in a month, yeah?"

"Five weeks."

"Shame. I'll miss your visits."

"You could come back to Seoul with me, you know." Jinyoung joked. 

"Your parents would be okay with that? I'm a little messy." Jihoon laughed and gestured to the books littering the floor. 

"They've practically been begging me to make friends back at home and we have a spare room. I doubt they'd care since they're barely home anyways." What started out as a joke became something that could work the more Jinyoung thought about it. 

"Yeah? You should ask them tonight. I'm pretty sure my grandparents would rather live out their retirement in peace than deal with me." Jihoon smiled and it was truly breathtaking. One of the things Jinyoung enjoyed most was making Jihoon smile. 

"I'll ask them but if we're gonna live together then I'll need your number. Gotta make sure you don't die trying to navigate Seoul." Jihoon pinched him in retaliation but wrote his number on a sticky note which he then proceeded to stick to Jinyoung's forehead. They both burst into giggles and Jinyoung never wanted the moments like this to end.

When Jinyoung got home, he wasted no time in asking his parents.

"As you know, I made friends with someone in the town. I was wondering if he could uhm.." he coughed, "if he could come with us when we go back to the city." His parents looked at each other and then back at him. 

"Jinyoung, we'll have to think about it. Living with someone is a big commitment." Jinyoung sighed. At least it wasn't a no. He went to his room, feeling defeated, and flopped down on the bed. He dialled Jihoon's number and waited for him to pick up. His heart jumped and a smile crept into his lips when he heard Jihoon's voice on the other end of the line.

"Hello?"

"Hi Ji, it's me."

"Hey there Seoul Boy." The two had come up with the nicknames for each other a week after they met.

"I asked my parents if you could live with us."

"What did they say?"

"They said they'd think about it."

"Damn. I didn't even ask my grandparents yet."

"It's okay, we should wait until my parents 'think about it'." Jinyoung coughed into the receiver. "Sorry about that."

"Are you okay? Are you sick?" 

"I'm fine. Just a tickle in my throat."

"Tell me if you're sick, yeah? I'll get you an employee discount on medicine." Jihoon laughed at his own dumb joke.

"Trust me that if I could hit you through the phone I would have."

The two talked on the phone until midnight. Jihoon was getting sleepy, Jinyoung could tell from his voice.

"Jihoon."

"Yeah?"

"Do you like flowers?"

"Mmm, I've never really thought about it. Do you?"

"Yeah. Did you know that all the flowers have different meanings?" 

"Do they?"

"Yeah, I know a lot of them. My mum had me in the garden with her a lot when I was a kid."

"Nerd. And here I was thinking that you were cool. This betrayal!" Jinyoung smiled at Jihoon's fake hurt. "So, Seoul Flower Boy, which flower reminds you of me?"

"Hmm," Jinyoung thought, "white camellias."

"What's the meaning behind them?"

"Not telling."

"Pleeaaasee?"

"Look it up." Jinyoung hung up before Jihoon started begging. He went to go wash up and get ready for bed. After he had changed into his pyjamas, he lied on the bed staring at the ceiling in the dark. The tickle in his throat hadn't gone away all day, and it was starting to get annoying. He brought his hand to his mouth as he coughed again. He felt something hit his palm, but it didn't feel like anything that would normally be coughed up. He flicked on the lamp on his bedside table and looked at the unknown object. It was a singular purple lilac blossom. Confused, he tried to think of ways that it could've made its way into his system. Maybe it had blown into his food when he ate outside at the cafe? It was odd, lilacs weren't in season this time of year and the blossoms were long dead. Yet that was the only explanation he could think of. People didn't just cough up flowers, that was impossible. He didn't feel like thinking about it, satisfied with his mediocre explanation. He tried to think of the meaning behind lilacs, a habit with every flower that he saw. He couldn't remember it and gave up. Just before he fell asleep, it hit him.

Purple lilacs meant 'first love'.

-

Jinyoung continued to cough up lilac blossoms over the next week, each time it happened the amount increasing. It was starting to get weird. He couldn't tell his parents about it, they would think he was taking some weird drug that made him hallucinate things. Every time it happened he threw them out the window, watching them blow away in the wind. He still met with Jihoon every day, doing his best to hide the fact that he was coughing and especially that he was coughing up flowers. He didn't want Jihoon to think he was sick or crazy. Yet, every time Jihoon smiled Jinyoung felt his heart flutter and the tickle in his throat grow stronger. Soon, he started feeling chest pain that accompanied the flowers. It was faint, but it was still there. That too grew stronger with time. Maybe he really was going insane. As the chest pain worsened, he coughed up fewer amounts of blossoms each day. Eventually, the blossom output halted, but the pain didn't. It seemed to grow stronger and even breathing became more of a challenge. It felt like roots were growing in his lungs, suffocating him. One night the pain was so bad that Jinyoung was in tears. He ran to the washroom and began violently coughing. It felt like he would cough up blood or even his lungs. He leaned over the toilet as coughs racked his body. Eventually, something came out, and he opened his eyes and looked at it through tears. It was a full lilac bloom, not just a handful of the tiny flowers. Blood surrounded the flowers and Jinyoung couldn't take his eyes off of it. He felt frozen in place, his breathing ragged and his eyes wide. He had just coughed up a  _whole flower._ With shaking hands, he fished the blossoms out of the bloody water and flushed the toilet. He went back to his room and dropped the flower out the window. That night, there was no wind to take it away. He staggered over to the bed and passed out. 

The next morning Jinyoung wondered if the events of the previous night were all a dream. One look out the window at the bloody purple lilacs told him that it was all too real. He had enough. He pulled out his laptop and opened google. He looked up "coughing up flowers" and the first and only autofill for it was "coughing up flowers disease". He cursed under his breath, he apparently had a full-blown disease and it had to do with the one thing he loved most. The first page that came up was on the Hanahaki Disease, which Jinyoung once read a comic about. He didn't remember the details but he remembered it being strictly fictional. He clicked the page and read it over. The first sentence also said that it was fictional, so how the hell Jinyoung got it he had no clue. Upon further reading, he found that the coughing up of flowers was caused by flowers growing in the victim's lungs, which explained the pain in his chest. The roots could potentially kill him, but he wanted to know what it was caused by and how to stop it. At the bottom of the page, it cautioned that there were rare cases of it in the real world. Just under that, it stated that the cause of the disease was unrequited love.  _Unrequited love?_ he thought,  _But I don't know anyone that I would love like that_. Just then, his phone rang and Jihoon's contact showed up. He felt his heart flutter and then it hit him. He was in love with Park Jihoon, that was the cause of his case of hanahaki. And how could he cure it? He had to make Jihoon fall for him, or die trying.

He picked up the phone and was met with Jihoon's sleepy voice. 

"Good morning Seoul Flower Boy. You answered fast."

"Can't help it, it's not like my phone is blowing up with notifications from my plethora of friends."

"Hah, it's too early for big words like that. Anyways, I just wanted to call you and tell you that it's my day off today so if you go to the store you're going to run into the assistant manager who I can guarantee is much less entertaining than me. That's all, have a nice day. Bye"

"Wait! I wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"Will you go on a date with me?" He was met with silence. Jinyoung didn't know why he asked, Jihoon would probably say no anyway. There was no possible way the other would have any feelings for him beyond platonic. Just when Jinyoung thought Jihoon had hung up, he answered.

"Yes."

-

Jinyoung heard knocking on his door. He answered it and there stood Jihoon, looking gorgeous as ever. They drove back into town with Jihoon's grandmother. Jinyoung felt too nervous to speak and Jihoon felt too awkward. To go on a date with your best friend was something new to the two of them. In fact, dates, in general, were new to Jinyoung.

It was safe to say that the date was not super successful, ending with awkward goodbyes and a hug that constricted Jinyoung's breathing even more. When he got home, he texted Jihoon before going to sleep. 

Jy: Hey, sorry tonight was awkward. Didn't know what I was thinking when I asked.  
Jh: It's okay. Don't feel bad, maybe we could try again sometime? In Seoul.  
Jy: Yeah, in Seoul.  
Jh: This doesn't change anything yeah? We're still friends.  
Jy: Of course we are. Goodnight.  
Jh: Goodnight.

What a cursed word 'friends' was. It was the beginning of so much, yet the end of everything after. It would be the death of Jinyoung if he wasn't careful.

-

For the next week, Jinyoung continued to cough up flowers. His parents either didn't hear or didn't bother asking. The pain in his chest was mind-numbing, and there was only one way he could think of solving it. He called Jihoon.

"Hello?"

"Hi Ji. Meet me in front of my house tonight, don't ask why." Jinyoung hung up, trusting that Jihoon would follow through.

Jinyoung sat on the old wooden bench, waiting for Jihoon. His breathing was more laboured and the coughing fits were a constant, though it was a gamble whether or not they'd produce flowers or blood, or both. Jihoon wordlessly sat beside him. The two remained silent for a good 10 minutes, staring off into the ocean. The stars were reflected in the water, so one couldn't tell where the ocean ended and the sky began. 

"Why'd you want to meet me here?"

"Because," Jinyoung paused, "because I'm dying Ji."

"Hey, don't scare me like that. Why'd you actually call me here?" Jinyoung looked at Jihoon with tears in his eyes.

"I'm not lying. Remember when you asked if I was sick?" Jihoon nodded, "Well, looks like I am. And it's killing me."

"What is it? Can you go to the hospital?"

"I can't and it's called hanahaki disease. You get it from unrequited love and you start coughing up flowers." Jinyoung coughed into his hand, bringing it away bloody and clutching lilac blossoms. He showed it to Jihoon. "See? Perfect timing."

"And this is killing you how?"

"There are roots growing in my lungs, that's where the flowers come from. Eventually, I'll choke on them and suffocate. Probably tonight." Jinyoung laughed bitterly and grabbed Jihoon's hand, leading him to the edge of the cliff. "I just wanted to look at the stars one last time, with you."

"Jinyoung, you said it's caused by unrequited love. Who is it?"  Jinyoung coughed, blood running down his chin. He looked at Jihoon and smiled sadly. 

"It's you, Ji." Without hesitating, he grabbed Jihoon and kissed him. He kissed him passionately, trying to tell him how much he loved him. It was one last desperate effort to save his own life, but he liked it. Through his own blood and tears, Jihoon's lips tasted sweet. Jinyoung pulled away and Jihoon hugged him. Jinyoung rubbed the small of his back as if apologizing for causing him so much trouble. The pain in his chest remained. Jihoon looked up at him.

"Who says it's unrequited?" Jihoon grabbed Jinyoung by the collar and pulled him into another kiss. He stepped one of his feet back, causing the dry dirt to crumble away beneath him. Jinyoung's shirt ripped as Jihoon fell. It happened so fast that Jinyoung couldn't stop it. Before he knew it, he heard a sickening  _thud_ on the rocks below. He couldn't bear to look. The ocean breeze ruffled his hair, the salt stinging his eyes. But this time, it was the salt of his own tears. The pain in his chest reached its peak; it felt as if his lungs were being ripped apart. They probably were, by the roots. He started coughing up a mixture of petals and blood, seemingly without end. His breathing was beyond laboured, he was suffocating. He felt himself grow lightheaded from lack of air, still in shock from both Jihoon's confession and death. He fell to his knees and passed out. This time, he didn't wake up.

The ocean breeze ruffled his hair, but he could no longer feel the salt sting his eyes.  

**Author's Note:**

> white camellias mean "you're adorable"


End file.
